In Q3 2006, HP was able to finally surpass Dell for worldwide computer sales - albeit by a small margin. Competition within the North American market is even closer, with Dell continuing to hold a slight lead. Regardless of who is in the lead, the fact is that Dell and HP are the two largest computer resellers in the world. Not surprisingly, both companies also have an extensive line of displays on offer.

The LCD market is one of the fastest-growing segments of the computing industry, with new products offering improved performance launching on a regular basis. Not only has the quality of LCDs improved dramatically over the past several years, but prices continue to plummet as competition heats up. We took a look at Dell's 3007WFP 30" LCD recently, and now we've got HP's competing LP3065 offering in our labs for testing.

30" LCDs currently sit at the top of the lust-worthy computer displays totem pole, offering some of the highest resolutions and display sizes on the market. They also come with a price to match, effectively putting them out of reach of most consumers. Enthusiasts and computing professionals on the other hand are often willing to splurge in order to get top-quality products. It is possible to get more total screen real estate by running several smaller monitors, but some people prefer a single monolithic display over two or more smaller displays. Of course, if the quality of the larger display is also better than the smaller displays, that's another reason to consider spending the extra money.

As with all of the other 30" LCDs, a high-quality graphics card is basically required in order to properly utilize the LP3065. This is due to the native 2560x1600 resolution, which requires a dual-link DVI connection to function. While it is possible to find dual-link DVI ports on certain midrange graphics cards, the ports are far more common on high-end and professional GPUs. Naturally, if you want to run certain applications at the native resolution, you will need all of the graphics processing power you can find.

As we said in our review of the Dell 3007WFP, 30" LCDs certainly aren't for everyone, and the HP LP3065 isn't likely to change that fact. The real question is: is the LP3065 better than competing 30" LCDs? HP has added a few interesting features to their offering that could very well move it to the head of the pack. Let's take a closer look.

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I tried to get one and Apple declined. I think Anand has their original version, but that has been outdated by newer releases. If Apple updates their 30" display again, I will see if they're interested in sending one for review. Reply

The brightness is too low. And the benefit (the wider gamut) is harder to gain the advantage of visually than losing the brightness. In fact it is likely the older 3007FP is a better screen in practical use than the 3007FPHC.

I'm not talking TV levels here like 500-550 cd/m2, but rather that 400-450 wasn't bad, and as the backlights degrade slowly over time, effectively give a nice lifespan if you aren't using them in bright environments.

The cost of adding a few extra DVI-D inputs is so cheap it's a travesty they weren't included in every 30" model. PIP might be genuinely useful on a screen this size, so there's another area where the scaling and picture circuitry would be useful. In fact, skip the USB bus entirely and at least give me two, or three DVI-D ports instead.

Probably I missed how you approached it but I saw no direct mention of screen uniformity, which has been a bother in earlier 30" models.

I would add the Samsung 305T and XL30 (when it arrives) to show the full gamut of these size screens. A LOT of folks are commenting that the increased color gamut isn't all that noticeable or useful due partially to a lack of good standards on the pc side to utilize that gamut. 120hz is going to happen faster to smaller displays (sorry) because a DVI-D might have enough bandwidth to drive lower res at double the refresh. I'm not perfectly familiary with the overhead needs, but the bandwidth will be there first, not first in larger displays and moving down. This again points to the use of a 32" 1080P 120hz screen utilizing a card that had HDMI 1.3 output as your fastest way of getting to the 120hz goodness if that is what you seek. Otherwise you'll have to wait a few years.

Core things that need to happen to 30" in general:

400-450 brightness

OSD's

Scaling chips and alternate/multiple inputs

LED backlights (as practical - and not for the gamut increased but the better contrast ratio, screen uniformity and lifespan)

Color accuracy and grey accuracy put ahead of gamut changes. Meaning gamut is useful to a small degree, but the end user is going to appreciate careful color filters and lcd pixel (gray) accuracy more than just increased gamut.

Loved reading these article, because you don't just cover the 30's or the newest 2407 but also the older models, so people can see if the "switch up" is worth the $$.

Thanks so much for the review. But I gotta give criticism on the timing, since this is perhaps the best computer display ever, and you waited over 4 months after it came out to review it. Yet when it comes to video cards or CPUs, you review them immediately, sometimes before they're even released! A display is equally important to those components. Reply

If you look at our display reviews, you'll notice that we only recently started doing these again. The first recent display review was in late February, and since then we've been trying to grow the display reviews section aggressively. Hopefully we will get future displays around launch time, now that we're recommitted to the section. Not surprisingly, HP wasn't really pushing to get us a 30" LCD for a launch-date review when we hadn't covered any LCDs recently. :) Reply

In your review you say that there isn't much difference between HP's LP3065 and old Dell 3007 WFP. While this would be very informative for some people a few weeks ago now this information is of no value any more because now Dell is selling only their new model 3007 WFP-HC which is comparative in price to LP3065.
Now people should decide between support, design, one or three DVI connectors and price. Reply

I thought that was the point I made (second paragraph, page 2) - that the new 3007WFP-HC is basically the same panel as the HP model. It's also why I recommend the HP over the Dell, as the multiple inputs seems like a lot more value added than a flash reader, and the price is now the same. (If you can find the older 3007WFP for less money, that's definitely a good choice as well!) Reply

chakarov's point is that the late-ness of this review is especially critical because there's apparently not much difference between the LP3065 ($1700) and the original 3007WFP ($1274); but a week ago Dell stopped selling that and now only offers a $1700 30" model. It would have been nice to know there's hardly any difference between 11/1/06 and 3/20/07.

But again, thanks for doing the review and it's great =)

Oh btw, the HC can be had for $1430+tax if you buy through Dell's small business outlet. Reply

There are several reasons to get a single large LCD instead of multiple smaller LCDs. First, panel quality is going to be a factor, although you should be able to find very good quality 19" LCDs. Second, some people just hate having a black "gap" in their display area. Third, widescreen gaming has become more common, but there are still plenty of games that don't properly support widescreen resolutions. Consider DICE's Battlefield series -- all of them -- where they crop the resolution on widescreen outputs. If you were to run Battlefield 2 at 3840x1024 (assuming it would even work at all), you would probably end up with 3840x2880 and the game would crop the top and bottom 928 pixels!

Matrox has a list of http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/products/th2...">supported games, and not surprisingly none of the Battlefield games show up. In fact, there are a whole lot of games that aren't listed. Personal preference obviously plays a part, but I would rather have one large LCD than three smaller LCDs. If you disagree and are interested in surround gaming, by all means consider the Matrox TripleHead2Go. Reply